


Insincerity

by juliandarling



Category: Gemma Doyle Trilogy - Libba Bray
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-26
Updated: 2009-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:48:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliandarling/pseuds/juliandarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon was exceedingly drunk and found <i>everything</i> inordinately amusing. Especially the dark skinned and eyed driver that the Doyle’s had employed, who was currently preventing the Middleton heir from collapsing into the sewage in the gutter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insincerity

**Author's Note:**

> Err, I don’t even want to know how this came about. But it did. It was one of those things. I doubt this is even in the right spot within the narrative of the original story, but I don’t really care. Oh, and I think this is set in _Rebel Angels_. Possibly. If you haven’t read any of the books in the series, this can totally be read as original slash. It doesn’t have any _need-to-know_ bits. And no, this is not beta'd. Cross posted to [dreamwidth](http://juliandarling.dreamwidth.org/5809.html), originally posted 26 February 2009.

Simon was exceedingly drunk and found _everything_ inordinately amusing. Especially the dark skinned and eyed driver that the Doyle’s had employed, who was currently preventing the Middleton heir from collapsing into the sewage in the gutter. The driver, named Kartik, he remembered dimly, was probably frustrated and angered by his mistresses ex-suitor’s impropriety, but Simon had just been _dumped_ for god’s sake, by a girl who had already been enormously unsuited for him in both stature and physicality. She had freckles, Simon realised faintly. He was surprised his mother had never remarked on it within his hearing; he had often heard her disparage sun-kissed women. Simon couldn’t care less, but what did that matter when he was three-sheets to the wind and draped over a boy who smelled like spice and sweat and something indescribably sad.

“I’m so sorry,” Simon slurred, “to inconvenience you like this. I’ve just been _dumped_ you see, and I’ve no idea where I am.”

“You are in a part of town that no gentleman should be seen in,” Kartik replied, faintly accented voice stiff with disapproval. “You’re lucky I found you before the pick pockets did.” Simon wasn’t fussed about his wallet. He was far more worried about his increasingly unsteady balance.

Simon snorted to himself. “Well, what are _you_ doing here, good Mr Kartik?”

Kartik was silent. “I’m waiting for someone.” He hoisted Simon further up on his shoulder and took a firm step toward the carriage. “You’ll have to wait for me to collect him before I can take you home.” Him? Well, clearly Mr Kartik was not waiting for his lady love. This bolstered Simon for a brief, clear moment. But the fog that was threatening to overwhelm him settled back in as Kartik tried to move him forward. He groaned, and pressed his hot face into the cool silk of the driver’s jacket. The boy hardly seemed to notice, so focused was he on keeping Simon from falling face first into the mire.

“I truly appreciate your kindness,” Simon muttered into the fabric, hand clutching Kartik’s strong arm. “I swear, I’m not usually this... I can’t remember the word.”

“Drunk?” Kartik supplied sourly.

Simon snorted again, attempting to cast a condescending look, but failing when the world spun around him violently. “Ugh... I meant something much more...”

“Yes, well,” Kartik said with a sigh that sounded not a little angry. “I don’t think you can handle a larger vocabulary right now, much less deign to think that I might.” Simon blushed. He hadn’t meant to offend the driver, but he belatedly admitted that he’d made some rather sweeping judgements before thinking. How many drivers did he know that had any education whatsoever, much less knew the word _deign_?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Yes, well you did,” Kartik snapped, jerking Simon a bit more roughly. “And I’m not in the mood to hear your insincere apologies. With luck you won’t remember any of this in the morning.”

Simon bristled, but then deflated. He was sure that he _seemed_ insincere to the driver, but he truly hadn’t meant it. But the damage was done, and if the quick puffs of air coming from Kartik’s mouth were anything to go by, he’d be lucky if the Doyle’s driver was kind enough to deposit him on his front steps, not some back alleyway... “I’m sorry,” he said dismally, looking up at Kartik with his best face of contrition.

Kartik’s face softened just slightly, and his steps toward the carriage relaxed considerably. “I suppose you are,” Kartik said thoughtfully, and then let out a sigh of relief when he realised that they were practically at the carriage. Kartik opened the door one handed, propping Simon up against the smooth wood momentarily. Simon moaned into the hollow of Kartik’s neck, feeling as if he’d been dumped on his head. Kartik laughed, a low sound that went straight to Simon’s groin and made him feel as if he were burning up. Gently, as if Simon were a baby, Kartik helped him into the carriage and began to arraign his loose limbs.

Simon looked up at Kartik, his breath sharp and fast as he smelt the sweet, spicy scent of Kartik’s breath, felt the roughness of his hands, saw the flicker of dark eyelashes on cinnamon skin. Simon reached out, hand brushing against dark hair, fingers trembling.

“Yes?” Kartik asked, voice subdued, body frozen.

Simon let his fingers travel over the stubbled chin, to cup the back of Kartik’s neck and pull him closer. He didn’t want to close his eyes. So he stared at Kartik, reckoning the driver would jerk away and give him a look of disgust. But the boy just stared, eyes wide, expectant. And Simon, for the first time in his life, did exactly what he knew he wasn’t supposed to, and pressed a chaste kiss against the dusky pink of Kartik’s chapped lips.

The other boy tasted like sun and spice, smelled like tobacco smoke and dirt and something sad. And there was a feeling in the lower pit of his belly, like he was holding his breath and wasn’t sure when he could relax and let go. They froze in that position for what seemed like forever, and for a moment Simon thought that it was over, when Kartik slowly let his hand travel up to rest on Simon’s elbow, like he was escorting him to a ball, or in a dance, and then deepened the kiss.

The subtle pressure from Kartik’s mouth was enough to let Simon open his mouth and let out an obscene moan that travelled from his toes to his belly and through his throat in one fell swoop. Kartik took this as an opportunity to delve his tongue in, assured and smooth, a swipe of affection accompanied by the tightening of his grip on Simon’s elbow. Simon let Kartik push him over on the bench and settle his weight over him like a heavy blanket, all parts of their bodies touching in awkward angles and protuberances. Simon was far to drunk to care that the hardness of his erection was pressing into Kartik’s shallow hip bone curve, or that Kartik’s hands were roaming all over him in a way that he’d never allowed anyone to touch him.

If he had been sober he would have protested Kartik’s liberties with his clothing, the way the boy pushed his hand into his pants without so much as a “how are you?” and grabbed him, calluses brushing against the not-so-softness of his cock. If he was sober he would have perhaps objected to the jerking movements of Kartik’s hands, the biting kiss, the way that Kartik sucked his tongue like it was a hard candy. If he was sober he would have raised an outcry over the rolling motion of Kartik’s hips, the smouldering of his dark eyes, the guttural groans that were rising from the both of them.

But Simon was not sober, and therefore, could not stifle the high pitched whines that emitted from his mouth into Kartik’s and could not prevent himself from arching like a bridge, whisper screaming Kartik’s name, and coming from his epicentre straight into the waiting, dirty, worn hand of Gemma Doyle’s driver. He was still seeing spots from behind his eyes when Kartik gave a moan of his own, curved into him and then stilled.

The sound of their panting suddenly seemed to fill the carriage, and Kartik looked down at him with a strange glimmer in his eye. Simon couldn’t tell if it was the way that moon seemed to catch in those brown, sympathetic orbs, or if Kartik were having second thoughts. He didn’t have long to think about it before the other boy was pushing off him and straightening his clothing, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the spill of wetness at the crotch of his uniform. He gave Simon one last, impenetrable look, before exiting the carriage and shutting the door behind him with a near-silent _click_ of the latch.

Simon sat up to watch the trim figure stalk off into the shadow, and then collapsed back onto the bench, haze settling into his mind once more.

\---

  
The next time Simon saw Kartik, he was near Picadilly with some of his friends from school, enjoying a cup of tea on the balcony. He recognised the subtle sheen of Kartik’s skin from down the street, no longer in his uniform, but now the casual clothing of a commoner, a regular man. But his cinnamon skin stood out in the sea of white, and Simon’s hands shook as he took a sip of his tea. He was forced to put the cup down, and excuse himself from the table to get up and stand at the edge of the veranda to watch Kartik come up the street.

The other boy took no notice of anyone around him, but as he approached the house, he looked up, and with a shocked look on his face, caught Simon’s eye. Simon stilled, white knuckles clutching the balcony. Kartik’s body stiffened, and his pace slowed, eyes accusing.

Simon let his eyes shutter close for a moment, thinking of those dark, strong hands on his body, slipped up his shirt, and then turned away. When he looked back a few moments later, Kartik was gone, swept away with the crowd. And Simon knew that he would go back to tea with his mates, woo a new girl at dinner that night, get married, have children, and _never, ever_ forget the feeling of those chapped lips on his neck.


End file.
